Chamber’s community marketing initiative “is working out very, very well”

The numbers say it all: the Huntsville Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce (HLOBCC) had a great year in 2017.

Its goal is to promote Huntsville and Lake of Bays as year-round destinations to increase visitors to the area, thereby supporting local businesses when those visitors shop, eat and spend on other services.

“We do so by providing assistance and marketing for existing events and attractions with a commitment to supporting the development of new events,” the HLOBCC wrote in a November letter to its members. “Stimulating a year-round economy means that we focus on shoulder-season events, and to recognize the value of our natural setting, we prioritize activities that have a low environmental impact.”

HLOBCC Executive Director, Kelly Haywood, and Chair of the Community Marketing Initiative Committee, Jeff Suddaby, presented the organization’s 2017 results to Huntsville’s General Committee on November 29.

“The initiative to market our community is working out very, very well,” said Suddaby.

Through 12 campaigns in partnership with Explorers’ Edge and Muskoka Tourism that focused on shoulder season events, outdoor adventures, dining and cultural tourism, the Chamber increased its Facebook reach by 1,382 per cent to more than 4,000,000 people. Visits to huntsvilleadventures.com were up 283 per cent.

This graphic was included in a letter sent to HLOBCC members and shows its year-over-year increase in its Facebook campaigns and website visits

Both of the Chamber’s shoulder season events — the Muskoka Maple Festival in April and Girlfriends’ Getaway Weekend in November — also did well this year. The maple festival attracted hundreds of visitors, aided for the second year by a sunny spring day. Girlfriends’ Getaway Weekend sold out at Deerhurst and also featured two sold-out shows at the Algonquin Theatre. That number of people in town translates into good news for some local businesses.

“Since the beginning of Girlfriends’ Getaway Weekend, our business has increase 50 per cent in the month of November,” said Suddaby of his restaurant, Three Guys and a Stove. “Now instead of losing money in the shoulder season, we are making money.”

Haywood added that the two events, along with others that the Chamber supports like Band on the Run, are “designed to be events that not only bring people into our community during the shoulder season but they are also designed to be marketing campaigns. They are designed to put us on the map.” She said that while there were a few thousand women in Huntsville for Girlfriends’ Getaway Weekend, the digital campaign for the event reached 700,000. “Who knows if they came the next weekend, who knows if they come for a different event because they’ve spent some time searching our website?”

Funding for the Chamber’s marketing efforts comes from a variety of sources, said Suddaby: $50,000 from the Town of Huntsville ($25,000 plus another $25,000 to match funds contributed by HLOBCC members), $30,000 from members, $40,000 from FEDNOR, $25,000 from RTO12, and revenues from events for a total of $170,000.

For 2018, HLOBCC hopes to increase those funds to almost $299,000 with $50,000 in pledges from its members, $25,000 from the Town and $25,000 in matching funds, $5,000 from the Township of Lake of Bays, $5,000 from the Downtown Huntsville BIA, $28,000 from RTO12, $5,000 from Muskoka Tourism, $42,500 in provincial funding and $82,226 in federal funding, and projected event revenue of $31,200.

The bulk of those funds will be spent on digital marketing and events: $101,600 on digital marketing, $48,326 on community events, $23,000 on Girlfriends’ Getaway Weekend, $60,500 on the Muskoka Maple Trail and Festival, $13,000 on print and digital guides, $17,500 on website enhancements, and $35,000 on a FEDNOR youth intern.

The Chamber also plans to develop a new signature event that will launch in June 2019, because “it’s been identified that in the month of June we need a little boost believe it or not,” said Suddaby.

And it plans to work with RTO12 on workforce development in the future. “(It) is becoming a real issue in our industry. We have to add it to our list because we need support,” said Suddaby. “There are strategies for what we need to do to get workers to help us because we are becoming a year round destination, no question.”

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